Lake view: Airplanes on the lake?

We live on a quiet cove in Four Seasons. It's just past Six Mile Cove, short and narrow, so the ocean going yachts that have invaded the lake in the past few years only cruise in by mistake and have to do a T turn to get back to the main channel.

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By Susan Creel

The Lake News Online

By Susan Creel

Posted Sep. 9, 2013 at 11:42 AM

By Susan Creel

Posted Sep. 9, 2013 at 11:42 AM

Four Seasons

We live on a quiet cove in Four Seasons. It's just past Six Mile Cove, short and narrow, so the ocean going yachts that have invaded the lake in the past few years only cruise in by mistake and have to do a T turn to get back to the main channel.

I can leisurely paddle my kayak around my cove over my lunch break on a peaceful weekday in September without braving a single wave, and that is just what I was about to do when I heard a roar from above and witnessed a small plane crash landing just off my dock. It skidded to the back of the cove where it turned, plowed through the short length of the cove back to the main channel, and took off. Wow!

This was not a seaplane, but a boat with wings and a huge engine on top and between them. The pilot must have been lost, I thought. Had I or anyone else been in the water we would have been capsized at a minimum and almost certainly struck if we were in open water. There was no place for the plane to abort if the pilot happened to notice anyone at the last minute.

Suddenly another roar broke the stillness and the same plane once again crashed down the length of the cove. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice and I'm on the phone to the police.

Several referrals later I learned from the FAA that landing on our lake is not against the law, but causing a nuisance or excessive noise and certainly a danger is. The number of planes that fit the description of the one I saw is very limited. The FAA representative assured me he would attempt to track it down.

What sort of person would do what this pilot did? Perhaps the same sort who drives his huge boat way too fast on our dammed up river without regard for the wake he creates.

Perhaps the same sort who drives while he is intoxicated. As long as he is getting a thrill, who cares about anyone else?